across their rock table.

"Not after you spoke to me," she said, so quickly that the words seemed
to spring straight from her heart. "I wasn't afraid then. I was--glad.
No, I wouldn't scream--not even if you held me like Brokaw did!"

He felt the warm blood rising under his skin again. It was impossible to
keep it down. And he was ashamed of it--ashamed of the thought that for
an instant was in his mind. The soul of the wild, little mountain
creature was in her eyes. Her lips made no concealment of its thoughts
or its emotions, pure as the blue skies above them and as ungoverned by
conventionality as the winds that shifted up and down the valleys. She
was a new sort of being to him, a child-woman, a little wonder-nymph
that had grown up with the flowers. And yet not so little after all. He
had noticed that the top of her shining head came considerably above his
chin.

"Then you will not be afraid to go back to the Nest--with me?" he asked.

"No," she said with a direct and amazing confidence. "But I'd rather run
away with you." Then she added quickly, before he could speak: "Didn't
you say you came all that way--hundreds of miles--to find _me_? Then why
must we go back?"

He explained to her as clearly as he could, and as reason seemed to
point out to him. It was impossible, he assured her, that Brokaw or
Hauck or any other man could harm her now that he was here to take care
of her and straighten matters out. He was as frank with her as she had
been with him. Her eyes widened when he told her that he did not believe
Hauck was her uncle, and that he was certain the woman whom he had met
that night on the Transcontinental, and who was searching for an
O'Doone, had some deep interest in her. He must discover, if possible,
how the picture had got to her, and who she was, and he could do this
only by going to the Nest and learning the truth straight from Hauck.
Then they would go on to the coast, which would be an easy journey. He
told her that Hauck and Brokaw would not dare to cause them trouble, as
they were carrying on a business of which the provincial police would
make short work, if they knew of it. They held the whip hand, he and
Marge. Her eyes shone with increasing faith as he talked.

She had leaned a little over the narrow rock between them so that her
thick curls fell in shining clusters under his eyes, and suddenly she
reached out her arms through them and her two hands touched his face.

"And you will